


Something Better for Yourself

by LightDescending



Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Genre: Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightDescending/pseuds/LightDescending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You wanna know the thing about justice? ... It's a farce." </p>
<p>Mr. Orange is honestly curious. Mr. White is honest and professional. They're both honestly in way over their heads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Better for Yourself

“How’s a guy like you end up a criminal?”

Level stare.

Mr. Orange doesn’t notice; he’s looking out the passenger side window with his elbow propped up. Pops a couple of fries in his mouth from a greasy little paper packet. Larry keeps his eyes trained on the kid’s face for a few seconds more.

“You pull that outta your burger combo like a kiddie toy?”

“Hey man,” and now Orange does give him a side-eye, peering from under his eyelids. He raises his hands in mock defense for a second. “I ain’t tryin’ to get you all defensive or anything. I mean, I dunno your name. Dunno where you’re from. Don’t need or want placement, I just… a guy gets curious.”

Larry taps his thumbs along the steering wheel. He can feel Orange’s eyes are still on him. His jaw tingles a little and he runs some fingers over his right cheek before responding.

“It’s not an exciting story.”

“Borin’ is relative, right?”

“C’mon, kid...”

“Like I said, I’m not tryin’ to press you none.” Orange finishes chewing the last of his fries and crumples the packet up. He’s looking out the window again, watching people on the sidewalk outside the parking lot of the burger joint. Larry can’t bring himself to say anything still. His thoughts are turning over, the heavy plastic pages of a photo album. Almost absently he rubs at the faded-looking ink on his arms, tattoos a little soft around the edges. Prison tats. Some of ‘em might be half this kid’s age.

Orange sighs, and tosses his trash to the floor of the car between his feet. “Forget I asked-”

“You wanna know the thing about justice?”

Larry can tell that Orange is surprised. He recovers quickly, perks up a little like… a cocker spaniel or something. “Justice?”

“You need me to get technical? Justice system, if you wannit.”

“Sure. What’s the thing about the justice system?”

“It’s a farce.”

Quick glance. Orange has his head cocked to the side. While Larry watches his mouth comes open a little before closing when the kid swallows. “Whaddya mean?”

Larry looks out the front dashboard. Focuses on the side of the burger joint he can see ahead. It’s a drive-thru. They’re parked in an adjacent lot meant for people to stick around and eat in; picnic tables, trees, garbage cans. Shade dapples through the windshield and over his hands and turns them into something interesting to look at. He plans his words carefully.

“Let’s say you’re twenty-some. Do a stint. Get out, think to yourself, ‘hell. I should go back to school. Turn my life around. I got a bad start to things but it’s not too late to get out.’ School’s expensive, takes money. You try to get a job. You might not have much but your mom taught you your pleases and thank-yous. You’re polite enough. Know how to clean up, even wearin’ blue jeans. Press your shirts. The interviews go well enough and they seem impressed right up to the point where they come to the part about past records.”

His hands are still tight around the steering wheel and he forces himself to loosen his grip a little, relax: reassure the kid that this isn’t hard to talk about, it’s not a big deal. He’s cool. His tone is low and even and there’s a breeze moving through the car from the partly-rolled down windows. No one else in the lot around them. A mini-van parked a few spots down, a family sitting at the picnic table with litter and food strewn over its surface. The kid’s staring straight ahead, maybe he’s leaning down a bit more in his seat. Who knows what he’s thinking.

“At that point it’s a quick handshake, polite chatter, thank you for your time and we’ll give you a call back if we think you’re suitable. Sometimes there’s more small talk before or after, but mostly you know your resume might as well be in the trash already. Thing is, these are the jobs you think you’re qualified for. And you’d be ready and willing to show you’ve got what they’re lookin’ for, except they’ve already decided they don’t trust you.”

His mouth is a little dry. He grabs his soda from the cup-holder between them and watches the kid’s hand tense up a little. It’s over-sweet and cold and the ice-cubes rattle around the straw when he stirs the drink up just to hear the sound it makes.

“So…” Larry swallows again, the inside of his cheeks cool. “What else’re you gonna do? You know some guys, they get you a position somewhere. Like… gas station attendant, or some sorta mechanical work. Maybe a warehouse. Maybe auto-body.”

Things that could be viable. Stories he’s heard from other guys when they’re shootin’ the shit over beers and talkin’ about ‘real work’ they’ve done. A rough assemblage of possibilities and he tries not to hesitate or linger too much on anything, nothing that’d give away the truth of where he’s been. Larry’s careful. Cover his back.

“The pay is shit but they’ll vouch for you to the manager. Maybe they are your manager, keep a closer eye on you than anyone else but only when someone else’s looking. You keep your head down and ignore the coke dusting the employee bathroom sink or the smell of stale pot. Or the business calls your boss takes in the alley out back. The world you’re trying to leave is hanging out around the corner smoking, leaning back against the wall of the break room, in the office signing your paycheque.”

Orange is still real quiet.

“So let’s say a few months go by that have bad news written all over em. Your bank account is low and somehow people know it. You hear, hey, so-and-so’s lookin’ for a hand. You say no way. But things are drying up. Suddenly no becomes, no with a question mark. I can’t turns into, I shouldn’t. Your hard line gets blurry. Next thing you know you’re sitting in your cheap-ass shit apartment on the landline saying, who do I need to talk to. What you don’t say is that ketchup and cheddar sandwiches just ain’t cutting it anymore.”

Orange murmurs, “I hear you on those sandwiches, man.”

Christ. You hear the same kinda stories. Larry’s thumb is tapping the steering wheel again and he bites down an urge to change gears, change directions, ask the kid what way he’s come from. That’s bad storytelling, getting’ off track like that. It’s avoidance. He takes a deep breath through his nose and pays attention to the way his chest expands outwards, filling up slowly like infinite confined space. Someone once told him – or he read somewhere, can’t remember which – that each man was his own prison. There’s a reason they call it a ribcage.

He breathes out and feels a little steadier again.

“You balance things out and think, this isn’t so bad. I can do both. Then someone gets busted. You wind up in the cop shop a-fuckin’-gain. They’ve got their fists on the table in front of you leaning down and yelling how this time you’re going back for longer, you’re this no-good criminal scum.”

He’d gone to high school with one of the cops this one time. In your hometown, you’re bound to see people you know. Sat behind him in math class, this kid with the wavy blonde hair and broad shoulders, the one who nudged past him in the hallways with his buddies, the one who played football. The one who decided to get a gang of buddies together and jump him on his way home after school, kicking him in the side when he was down. Calling him a fag. Next day he’d gone to school with a switchblade, they come at him in the schoolyard. He’s ready for ‘em. Funny how after enough time, the memories end up unsaturated. Washed out of emotion. You realize the messages stick but all the tone’s gone outta them.

Didn’t have to use the knife but having it was enough for a long suspension. Mom managed to cry her way out of a full-on expulsion. Why’d you do it, the question on everyone’s mouth. Knew you were no good, the answer they supplied to their own fuckin’ question.

“You look at them and shout, ‘what else was I supposed to do?’ And the answer they come up with is, ‘you never shoulda gotten involved in the first place.’”

He needs a smoke. His mouth is dry. He grabs a cig from the pack up in the sunglasses holder above his head and slips it in the corner of his mouth. Lights it with the pop of his lighter. Doesn’t look over at Orange.

He takes a drag, feels the smoke in his throat. Hot.

Mutters, “Rinse, wash, repeat” around the cigarette.

He hasn’t raised his voice once, which he counts as a positive. Orange is back to starin’ out the passenger side window. Larry resists the urge to reach out and touch him on the wrist, the kid’s hand on the car seat and one finger tap-tap-tapping the upholstery.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” He finally asks.

Orange sniffs, looks over, scratches the back of his neck. Clears his throat.

“A lot.” Kid nods towards his pack. “Can I have one?”

Larry flicks out a cigarette, hands it over. They smoke in silence. Larry finishes his first. Pops the door of the car open and grinds the butt out on the parking lot pavement. Drains the last of his soda, liquid rattling at the end when there was nothing left but chattering ice. The sun’s hot outside. Somewhere a few spots down in the parking lot there’re some kids hollering, high shriek-y laughter hung all over the air.

Orange finishes his smoke, mirrors Larry’s earlier action: pops the car door, steps on the butt on the pavement. Larry watches the grind of the kid’s heel on the asphalt, heavy and deliberate and almost angry.

“What time is it?” The kid says, his back still to Larry.

Larry looks at his watch. “Quarter to three.”

Orange nods, his head balanced between the hunching slope of his shoulders. He folds himself back into the car, slamming the door in a fluid movement and leaning back in his seat. His legs sprawl out in front of him.

“Right. Ok.” He turns his head sharp towards Larry and jerks his chin up a little. “You got anywhere to be?”

“Not so far’s I know. Why?”

The kid’s eyes are a steel glint razorblade, his teeth bared more ‘dare-you’ than smile as he says, “Why don’t we go back to my place?”

-

It’s reckless and stupid and definitely outside the limits of the relationship they’re supposed to have. It’s how they’ve been from the start. It shouldn’t be this easy to say sure, to turn the key in the ignition, to shift gears and pull out of the parking lot. To go for a drive while the kid watches out the window, the radio crooning low between them, short sharp words only to say “left” or “right” or “next exit.” L.A. spools out around them hot and sunny. They’re in broad daylight, invisible in plain sight in the pre-rush-hour summer air. The trees on the freeway cast bars across the heat-wavering road.

Larry’s wondering if he overshared. If even saying anything was saying too much.

Mr. Orange’s apartment, where they’ll be picking him up in a coupla days tops for the job, is closer than Larry would like to where he’s staying... And he knows the kid knows it too. He’s already been there a few times, after all. The kid live-wired and jittery climbing the stairs, trying to look casual. Eyes darting everywhere. Hands unsteady with the keys.

“Such a bad idea,” Larry thinks he hears the kid muttering as he throws his keys on the kitchen table. Larry looks around, can’t help it: comic posters. A colourful cross near the doorway, a full length mirror, papers and shit everywhere. A mostly full-ash tray but the window’s open so the place smells fresh. Bright, clean light. The apartment of someone who lives alone on enough but not too much. Newspapers on the countertop and a coffee-cup with an inch or so of black coffee in the bottom. What he’s seeing is pretty much confirming what he already knew; Orange is a bachelor. Wedding ring’s a front, just like he said.

How long’s it been since he had an honest-to-God place that was his own? Where he could keep things and call them his? He feels like a thief stealing parts of this kid’s life. All at once he’s guilty for being here. In the back of his head he nixes any idea of mentioning this to Joe, or Eddie; any at all. Pictures Joe’s rage cracking into him like a gun-butt across the face, like _whaddya mean you went back to his place, what’re you nuts?_ Probably. Lookin’ around just confirms some suspicions he’s had. The kid’s still an untarnished penny with only a few scratches on him. A guy like him has no business joinin’ up on this crew.

Orange is at the sink downing a glass of water as quick as he can. His throat bobs.

“What’d you mean, a guy like me?” Larry asks.

The kid turns, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Huh?”

“I said, what’d you mean, a guy like me? How’s a guy like you end up a criminal, that’s what you asked.”

Orange leans back against his counter. His lower lip disappears into his mouth and he gnaws at it. “Shit, man. I dunno.”

Larry leans up against a wall. He waits.

“You seem too cool for it, I guess.” Orange finally manages. He picks up his empty water glass, drops still clinging to the insides, realizes it’s empty, puts it back down again. “Like, you seem like the kinda guy who doesn’t need to act it. Doesn’t put up a front or anything.”

It makes Larry laugh. “Kid, it’s called being a professional. You do anything long enough, you know how to act… what was it you said, cool?”

“Yeah, but… it’s something different.” Orange curls his fingers and runs them back through his hair. The way the light’s coming in through the blinds where they slat, halfway down the window over the sink, it draws striped lines of soft shadow across half the kid’s head. Like prophecy. “Joe’s got control by being bigger and louder’n everyone else in the room. Having all the strings in his fist and figuring when to yank on ‘em, if only to make sure everyone’s still in line. Eddie seems like he’s good, he’s smart, but he’s still learning and you can tell cause now and then he catches himself, doin’ or sayin’ something, and has to cover quickly or overcompensate. You…”

Larry chalks it up to the heat of the day, the patches of pink on the kid’s cheeks. They’ve been there since before this part of the conversation.

“You’re straightforward. Matter of fact. You seem like the kinda guy who could be anywhere. Anything. Calm and… in control. Self-assured. I’m ramblin’, man, cut me off already before I embarrass myself.”

“If anything I’m flattered.” And he is, a little. Reminds himself not to let it go to his head. He’s not someone worth admiring, when you get down to it; he’s good at what he does, and what he does is break the law to get away with it. Get away clean is a joke of a phrase.

“Listen. This job’s gonna go down smooth. Once it does, you’ll have some money. There’re two ways I recommend things go afterwards, take your pick.”

He holds up his index finger and watches the kid’s eyes follow it through the air. “One: you get straight.”

Quick flicker, intense stare. Shuttered eyelids lifting just a hair.

“You think it’s not that bad, this is easy. Thing is your luck always runs out. This guy I know…” He almost says Marcellus’s name, Larry does, and that doesn’t slide, it chokes up behind his teeth. Too much info. “This guy I know, his luck just ran out. Twenty years.”

“Jesus.”

“That ain’t the half of it. I saw how you reacted when I talked about doin’ the customers. Doin’ the managers. If things get hairy.”

The kid swallows. “Somethin’ about bashing faces. Cutting off fingers.”

“Correct. Seemed like you were a little uneasy about that. Your stomach’ll turn into cast iron if you let it.” Larry lowers his hand to his own, splaying his hands across his just above his waistband for emphasis. He watches the kid’s eyes follow there, tracking, and feels a low uncurling in his belly. Thinks about cold concrete floors. “You don’t have to let it.”

Mr. Orange nods. Shifts his legs around on the linoleum, a little worn and scuffed. His hands are clenching the edge of the counter. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve seen shit…”

“Seeing shit isn’t the same as doing. Neither is hearing it.”

This time Orange just nods. Larry lifts his hands back into the air, this time two fingers. Like “V” for Victory.

“Option number two.”

He thinks about what he’s gonna say, thinks about it long and hard and it’s a struggle getting the words out into the air. He’s not technically breaking the ground rules doing this, not for what the job demands. Somewhere in the back of his head he hears ‘Bama’s laugh, harsh and derisive and unapologetic, like _what, when’d you become a charity-case babysitter?_ Like there was a reason she walked out of his life, bold and without looking back, she’s doing good, that’s what he hears. It’s been a while since he’s had a partner though. Been a while since he’s been in…

“When all’s said and done, you consider joining up with me.”

Now the kid’s eyebrows shoot up. He crosses his legs at the ankles, uncrosses them, crosses them again. Folds his arms across his chest. “What, like a literal partner-in-crime deal?”

“That’s about what I was thinking.”

He watches the kid’s face contort, sees his mouth drop a little like he’s about to say something, and holds up the palm of his hand to cut Orange off. “I ain’t saying you gotta decide now. I’m just saying, I’ve seen the way you talk, the way you move. You’re sharp. Observant. Obviously you can hold your own when the shit hits the fan, you ain’t afraid to dive in. But you don’t know jack shit about how this stuff is organized, or how quick it can go bad. There’s… strength in numbers, right?”

He’s kicking himself for the last bit, it sounds too… what, needy? Desperate? Orange is still wrapped around himself. Larry – no, Mr. White, he can’t be Larry around Orange no matter what, time for proper introductions after the job – Mr. White steps forward onto the linoleum floor. Measured paces. Measured breaths. Moves in right up close and puts one hand on the counter next to the kid’s body. Leaves the other by his side, open, an open space next to the kid. He doesn’t wanna say how much he hopes the kid’ll pick the second suggestion. Already he’s having to prepare himself for what’s gonna happen, if the kid does what’s good for him, takes the money and gets out of the life, uses it to go back to school. Kick bad habits. Mr. White would be a bad habit for the kid. Might already _be_ one. They’re out of their fuckin’ minds.

Orange sighs a little when Larry lifts a hand up and brushes his hair out of his face. Closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, rubbing at his forehead.

The kid mutters, “Couldn’t there be a third option? A fourth one? Why’s those two the only ones you’re givin’ me?”

Larry chuckles. Cold water splashing. Remember the definition of restraint. Wait for the invitation; gaining entry into the apartment’s not enough. “The other options aren’t that good. Don’t warrant thinking about.”

“What’d they be?”

“Jail. Things go wrong. It’s not gonna happen, and so those options are my advice to you, kiddo.”

“Why couldn’t you give it up too, huh?”

“Guy like me? Nah. I’m in it for life. Probably got a rap sheet longer’n any resume I could ever write. Rap sheet practically _is_ my resume at this point.”

He keeps his tone light. He’s not joking.

Orange opens his eyes again. “So that’s your advice, then? Walk away or join up with you?”

Larry shrugs. It feels natural to him, like stretching. “Those’re my professional recommendations, yes.”

One last, heaving sigh, seeming like Orange is dragging it up from somewhere deep in his navel. He tilts his head more into Larry’s hand, seeming unaware that he’s doing it. Larry feels the weight of it, gentle against his palm. Warmed by the sun. Orange unfolds one arm and reaches up and rubs his thumb against the back of Larry’s hand. His lungs catch up in their cage. His breath stops and throws away the key and he thinks it’s stupid, thinks this is how you start losing it, when you break down the rooms inside your head.

Orange kisses the palm of his hand, lips cool and a little dry, and mumbles into the calloused skin “Your professional recommendations suck ass.”

“Smartass.” He manages, and even he can hear how hoarse his voice sounds.

Leaning in to meet Orange’s mouth in a kiss shouldn’t feel as simple as it does. As natural as slippin’ out of a bloodied-up sweaty shirt and putting on a cool clean button-down. Like a water-drenched rag on the back of your neck. Like chafing your wrists when the cuffs get taken off, or finally getting to loosen off your tie so you can swallow without feeling a press on your throat.

Orange is kissing him deep like it’s an apology. Grabs at the back of his head and at his hip to drag him closer. A guy like him. Orange is darting and dizzying and a little bit greedy.

“The bedroom’s that way,” he says low and rough when they break apart, and Larry glances behind him to see what he means, aware that his eyes are bright and his shirt’s rumpled and they’re both burning up, a little.

“Alright,” says Larry.

Orange pauses to lock the apartment door when he passes it. His fingers are interlocked with Larry’s the whole time.

Never shoulda gotten involved in the first place, he thinks in giddy dismay, when the kid pulls him down on top of him and there’s nothing in the way but skin.

-

In the dark, in the quiet, in the after. Orange is locked up inside Larry’s arms and it feels like he belongs there.

“Hey, White?”

It takes Larry a split second to realize the kid’s talking to him. He blurs his words a little to make it seem like he’s been drifting to sleep. “Yeah?”

“D’you wanna… I mean, could I tell you how I… I didn’t used to do this kinda shit, y’know?”

Larry freezes on the inside, wondering if the kid means ‘sleeping with guys’ or ‘armed robbery’ or… he’s not sure what the kid means, and he’s afraid of almost every possible option.

“Sure.”

A lengthy pause in the deep blue shadows and then he hears:

“It always comes down to where, and when, and who, right? Like my mom, we- she took care of me. Best she could, y’know, single parent. And I would always get into trouble, and she’d never cry, I think that was the worst part. Said things like, ‘reap what you sow’ and things, like you deserve what you ask for… So, like, whatever, right? Natural order of things is to get more serious, right? Cause you don’t take things seriously until…”

The kid shifts in his arms and turns around til he’s facing Larry. Buries his head under Larry’s chin. “Take your time.”

The kid snorts. “I’m not getting’ teary on you, man, I don’t do that kinda shit. Trying to figure out… what to say. How to say it. Don’t gotta worry ‘bout me. I’m tough, remember? Or I think I am. That’s my problem, maybe. Where I grew up, it was, rules make sense, follow ‘em. Except the rules don’t… they make sense til they don’t fuckin’ make _any_ sense. I’m so _fucked_.”

Orange shuts up. He’s told him everything and nothing.

Larry says the first thing that comes to mind. “Least we’re fucked together, right?”

The kid’s muffled snorting laughter sounds like the freest thing in the world to Larry’s ears. Soon enough his breathing eases, then evens, then deepens into sleep. He’s limp and loose and curled against Larry’s body in the confines of his arms. Larry’s comin’ down from his post-fucking buzz and feeling strange and melancholy and a little lonely. Or tired. Or old. He presses a kiss to the crown of Orange’s head.

“Least we’re fucked together.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's a fine line between mentorship and complicity towards your own downfall, and Larry and Freddy tread that on the daily. I've recently become highly invested in this doomed couple's relationship and their interactions with each other; Larry Dimick's a challenging guy to write, lemme tell you. Not entirely sure I feel confident in my writing voice as him, but it was enjoyable nonetheless to imagine a scenario or two where Freddy is largely unreadable beyond surface reactions. 
> 
> I did my best to include both a potentially semi-functional backstory for Larry (with flexibility as to the specifics), slight critique of criminal justice proceedings, and - of course - allusions to the complex nature of their relationship built as it is on a dangerous situation and layers of lies or deceptions. It was fun. 
> 
> As an incidental note, I was inspired by the awesome works of Delphi, who has written, like, 4 amazing Reservoir Dogs fanfictions, all of which are some of my favourite on the archive. Go read them if you haven't. Further note: Thank you so much to jesuisherve for reading this fic over before I chose to post it!   
> Critique or commentary is, as always, greatly appreciated.  
> Thank you for reading this story.


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